Arab World

The Arab World is a demographic region of Asia and Africa that includes the 22 member states of the Arab League. The population is 422,000,000, and most of the population adheres to Islam, with the Sunni sect outnumbering the adherents of the Shia sect. While the word "Arab" signifies a member of the Arab ethnicity, many of the countries are not ethnically-Arab; many of the African countries consist of genetic mixtures of Berbers and Arabs, or Arabized Africans that speak Arabic and adhere to Arab culture. Berbers and Kurds reject the existence of an Arab world because they are not Semitic peoples, while the Maronites, Copts, and Assyrians claim that they predated the existence of Arabs in their homelands. Nevertheless, the region shares a common culture and a common language, and their political unity is manifested in the Arab League.